The tale of a Portuguese kangaroo

A 16th Century Portuguese manuscript featuring a drawing of a kangaroo-like creature curled up in a tree eating leaves, recently purchased by the Les Enluminures Gallery in New York, is fuelling debate amongst historians over which European country was the first to sight the coastline of Australia. Official history says it was the DutchDuyfken voyage captained by Willen Janszoon that saw Australia first in 1606, but doest this tiny manuscript have the potential to turn that theory on its head?

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Comments (5)

ken bull :

27 Jan 2014 10:41:31am

My immediate impression on viewing the image was aadvark. However I also keep in mind illustration conventions used when depicting unknown fauna on early expeditions . Rather than draw/paint the species as objectively as possible, attempts were made to align it with a known anology , in this case the aadvark. just a theory.

Ian Bourne :

28 Jan 2014 11:28:30am

My immediate impression was more of a kangaroo/macropod. An aardvark's diet is almost solely ants and termites, so the artistic license of showing an aardvark eating leaves continues to stretch the aardvark theory, along with the lack of proportion for the aardvarks' longer snout and piggish like nose. Conversely, there are several macropods that are predominantly browsers, the proportion of face is a better match, as is the depiction of the hind leg/foot. The forelegs are larger in proportion to our grazing kangaroos but do resemble the proportions of a tree kangaroo. I say, Kangaroo!

Bronwen :

28 Jan 2014 11:36:45am

Even if it were a stylised macropod, that doesn't necessarily mean it is an Australian species. Apart from the species of wallabies and tree kangaroos on the New Guinea mainland, there's also a species of Dorcopsis wallaby on Misool.

Tim Flannery's books on mammals of New Guinea and the Moluccas might shed some light on this.

Murray Johns :

29 Jan 2014 11:01:06am

Dear Michael Sorry I missed your program yesterday - but the body of the said animal does not have the profile of a kangaroo. A roo has a relatively narrow chest and wide waist while the picture shows an animal with a big chest and narrow waist - more like that of a deer.

Interestingly, now on at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra is an exhibition of 'Old Masters' - aboriginal bark paintings from Arnhem Land. One exhibit is of an animal very similar to the Portuguese kangaroo, in an upright position eating leaves off a branch, but is (labeled) a possum. Anyway, based on nothing more than the shape of the body, I believe the Portuguese animal is much more likely to be a deer than anything else. Grateful for any feedback. Murray